


Things are different down south (Rewritten!)

by StariNights



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Autistic David Jacobs, Canon disabled characters, Depression, Enby characters, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, First Kisses, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Hispanic Jack Kelly, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mental Illness, Mentions of past self harm, Multi, My poor babies, Southern Culture, Trans Characters, canon jewsish characters, cuban spot conlon, disater bisexual jack kelly, everyones gay, idiots to lovers, idk memes i guess, impulsive chaos racetrack higgins, kiss the homies goodnight, neurodivergent characters, president of the gay club jack kelly, prolly more to come, self hate, southern davey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28519479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StariNights/pseuds/StariNights
Summary: New York City. The City that Never Sleeps. The Big Apple. Home of the famous New York’s pizza and first ever Pizzaria, Lombardi’s- opened in 1895 and still serving today. If anything can happen it will, whether or not that's a good thing is up to you.Life is chaos, that's all there is to it. Sometimes that's just what you need.(Aka my literal child. I love this fic and have been thinking about it for like 3 years now. I'm horrid at summaries)
Relationships: Albert DaSilva/Finch (Newsies), David Jacobs/Jack Kelly, OC/OC, Romeo/Specs (Newsies), Sarah Jacobs/Katherine Plumber Pulitzer, Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins, crutchie/happiness, crutchie/oc/oc/oc
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Things are different down south (Rewritten!)

New York City. The City that Never Sleeps. The Big Apple. Home of the famous New York’s pizza and first ever Pizzaria, Lombardi’s- opened in 1895 and still serving Pizza today. 

Davey had been thinking of nothing but random trivia facts about New York since his father announced the move. He couldn’t help it. It was a huge- to move from his small town in the foothills to the Big Apple? He wasn’t completely sure how to feel about it. 

Sure, it was exciting. He had been dreaming about moving there since he was just six years old and watched _James and the Giant Peach_ for the first time. He still hummed the line _“bright lights, big city! That’s where I wanna be”_ anytime anyone brought it up. He had this romantic ideal of what life could be like there. Coffee shops he could walk to, a bookstore on the corner that knew him by name, somewhere that he wasn’t just “that Jacobs boy”. He was David. He was his own person, not just an extension of his mom and dad, not just Sarah Jacobs’ quiet brother. Not just the kid that was outed in freshman year and now no one wants to be near him because if they are, they’ll be targeted too. 

So yeah, he was excited- absolutely buzzing with it- but then… well he was fucking terrified. 

No one knew him in New York so he could be whoever he wanted to be- but that meant no one was watching his back. No cashier at the dollar store who always gave him a warm smile and a hand shake when he went for toilet paper and a box of cosmic brownies. No Spades to pick him up in her two door jeep that he had to literally climb into because the lock was jammed on the passenger side. No Romeo stealing his nice sweaters and begging him for help in math 2. No more impromptu camping trips or waterfalls to watch Spades throw herself off.

He laid on his bed just thinking about it. Staring at his ceiling that had lost its stars a few days ago. He counted the spots from where the paint had peeled off, creating new constellations out of them. 

After a moment, there was a knock on his door frame. He looked up to see his sister leaning against it, smiling softly. 

“Hey Dave- mama wanted me to let you know we’re leaving first thing in the morning,” she said, “so try not to stay up all night.”

He nodded, “course, I’ll head to bed soon. Promise.” 

That seemed to satisfy her as she stepped away from his door and shut it behind her. He was left in almost darkness, the only light coming from the moon outside his window. 

David sighed, falling back on his bed and staring at his ceiling. He tapped his socked foot against the floor where his leg was hanging off the bed. _“Bright lights, big city… that’s where I’m gonna be.”_ He closed his eyes and sang softly to himself, voice barely above a murmur, “ _Where the food is great and the boys are pretty…”_

He was almost asleep before a light _tap tap tap_ came from his window. A momentary glance to his window brought a bright grin to his lips. 

Right outside, perched in the tree outside his window, was his best friend Spades. 

He shoved off his mattress and rushed over, throwing open the window so she could climb in. The warm night air blew into his room as Spades swung her leg over the window sill and stepped into his carpeted room. 

She brushed leaves and such off her sleevless shirt as David shut the window behind her. She turned around to grin at him, arms open for a hug. He fell into her tight grip, smile buried in her strong shoulder. 

When they pulled away, she was still grinning. “Heya mouth!” Davey smiled back, hands resting on her shoulders. 

“What in God’s green Earth are you doing here?” he wasn’t actually surprised she was here, it wasn’t the first time she’d shown up at his window after dark to annoy him until they both passed out on his bed, still in their day clothes. Really he said it out of habit at this point, feigning concern and confusion when in reality he was excited to see her. 

“What? You thought you were gonna spend your last night in this damn town without me?” She shoved at his chest lightly, though he still stumbled back because he was, among many things, a twig of a teenage boy, “you hit ya head or somethin’? Forget who I am? Not a chance!”

“I - Well I didn’t-” he struggled for some sort of rebuttal, coming up with absolutely nothing. She laughed and shook her head.

“Almost a full ass _decade_ of bein’ friends with me and you still don’t seem to understand how this whole ‘best pals’ thing works~” She teased, ruffling his already messy black hair. 

He stuttered through a laugh, shoving at her hands. “Shuddap! I thought you would at least text before you barged in through the window!” 

“Once again, ten fucking years and you expect me to text? Hilarious!” 

David rolled his eyes, pushing past her and falling back on his bed. “Yeah yeah, I get it,” he felt the bed shift as she fell beside him, legs dangling off the edge. 

He turned his head to look at her, smiling softly, “I’m glad ya came, Tasha.”

She paused, not used to the sound of her given name on his lips. No one ever really called her that outside of her own blood and sometimes she forgot other people even knew her real name. Davey knew that as well, giving the entire moment more emotion than either of them were expecting. He turned away from her, eyes going back to the false constellations on his ceiling. 

“Like I said, I ain’t letting you spend your last night here worrying about what’ll happen when ya leave.”

They lapsed into silence. Just soaking up the warmth of each other seeping into their sides. The emptiness of Davey’s usually cluttered room felt forgien to the both of them. Boxes stacked against the wall gave this nightly meeting an air of finality that made David feel cold, despite the space heater laying beside him.

He frowned as he stared up at the ceiling and he could feel Spades’ piercing gaze on the side of his face. She always had that effect, with brown eyes so piercing and sharp she barely had to say a word to get someone to spill everything in their soul to her. She didn’t use it on David all that often, but he knew she was now.

He didn’t look at her. “Ya know…” he gulped, forcing a small smile that didn’t look all that natural, “if we were in a teenage novel this would be where we confess our undying love for each other, only to reunite years later and realize we’ve grown into completely different people,”

Spades barked out a laugh and David’s smile eased into something more natural.“This your way of saying you love me? Cause I gotta be honest, this is the shittiest confession I’ve ever been a part of,”

Finally, he laughed, covering his mouth with his hand to hide his real smile. The tension slipped from his shoulders as it always did when she was around. He finally looked back at her, meeting her shining eyes. He almost willed his heart to flip, for his cheeks to heat up at the sight of her beautiful face.

Alas, nothing more than a platonic fondness came to light. 

“I wish I was in love with you, it would be so easy,” he admitted, “like- we’re best friends and we’ve already spent every day of our life together- why can’t we just be in love?”

She rolled her eyes, obviously not having thought about it as much as David had. “Because hun, we’re both incredibly gay and you’re moving away tomorrow mornin’.”

He huffed, “yeah well, it would be so much easier if we could be in love.”

She was quiet for a moment, seemingly thinking of some joke she could make to get him to laugh and move on. He didn’t look at her, completely sure he’d end up oversharing how much he’d really thought about them being in love, why he did it. It was a vortex of self doubt and internalized homophobia that he just didn't want to go down tonight. 

“I think woulda fallen in love with you on day one if I was straight.”

That caught his attention. He turned to look at her, at her strong arms and soft eyes. He looked over her dark skin and coiled hair tied up in braids on one side of her head. He took in her undeniably beautiful features, thought about her solid grip grounding him when he needed her, about how everything she did screamed punk rock rebel but she still made sure Romeo, the 15 year old that lived next door, had a lunch packed everyday and did more for her grandparents than she did herself. He thought about how soft her chapped lips just had to be and how tightly she could hold him and honestly?

He felt nothing that could be construed as romantic feelings. It felt like both a relief and a pain to his chest. 

He finally let out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. 

“Yeah, I think I’d love you too.”

They lapsed into another bout of silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable- nothing ever was with Spades - just thoughtful. David was running through all the “what if”s and “if only”s his mind could come up with. Spades was tapping out some sort of rhythm on her leg that David didn’t recognize. He wasn’t sure if that meant she’d made it up or if it was just a song he’d never heard.

After a moment, she spoke again. Her voice betrayed the worry in her voice despite the carefully constructed carefree look stamped on her face. “You better not forget about me when you go off and meet all ‘em interestin’ big city kids,” she muttered, fingers abandoning their beat to pick at the hole in her jeans. 

David looked at her for a moment. For a second he was confused. He’d always seen Spades as his only friend, as the person that came to save him from his own loneliness. From the moment she found him under the slide in first grade and told him she liked his sweater, she was all he had.

He’d just realized he was her only friend as well. 

“I could never,” he said earnestly, laying a hand on her arm, “even if I’m too gay to be in love with ya, I still need you in my life. You’re my best friend, Spades. You’ll still be my best friend in New York.”

She huffed, a smile pulling at her lips. Though she tried to look cool and unaffected, David could see the worried crease in her brow smooth out. “Good. I’m the only lesbian allowed to kick your ass at poker, no matter how far away you end up.”

She punctuated her sentence by poking him in the side where she knew he was ticklish. He yelped, jerking up and away from her offending hands.  
  
Spades just snorted and poked at him again, only to receive a light slap to her hand and a very high pitched “Spades! Quit it!” 

It was well into the night before they ended up falling asleep, legs draped across one another and heads on opposite ends of the bed. Their conversation had turned from existential dread to what kind of frog they would be. (David would be a tree frog because he likes being alone, climbing trees, and the rainforests. Spades would be a toad because they are Lorge.)

Light had yet to come through his windows when Sarah burst open his door with a fucking airhorn that he still had no idea how she got.

“Wake up sleepyheads!!” she screamed. David jerked awake, heart hammering in his chest as he looked around wildly for the apparent danger his brain was screaming about.

Spades, meanwhile, just rolled over and put a pillow over her head. Sarah barely even acknowledged her, not at all surprised to see her in her brother’s bed. 

“One of these days you’re going to kill me with that thing,” he held a hand to his chest, heaving through the panic. Sarah just grinned and honked it again.

“Sucks to suck! Get the fuck up already! The moving van is here!”

David groaned, taking the pillow from Spades to throw it at his sister. Sadly, she wasn’t there anymore, already off to finish moving her own boxes to the van. 

Spades kicked his leg, finally pushing herself up so that she could sit and look at him. 

“I guess it’s time for you to go, huh?”

He sat up, running a hand through his hair. A moment passed before he answered her.

“Yeah, yeah I suppose so…” 

She huffed out a laugh and gave him a soft smile. “Don’t look so glum, Mouth. You’re gonna take New York by storm!” 

She kicked his leg again and he found a smile to offer back. He couldn’t help it; she just looked so sure of herself- so sure of him- he couldn’t help but believe her. 

After another moment of hating the mere idea of getting out of David’s warm bed, they both got up, straightening out the clothes they’d slept in. Spades grinned at him and ruffled his hair before picking up three of his boxes and walking out of his room without him. He rolled his eyes, grinning. She couldn’t help but show off- even when she didn’t mean to.

He followed behind her with the last box she’d left him, running his thin hands over the pastel yellow walls one last time before stepping out of his childhood bedroom and meeting the rest of his family out by the van. Spades had just loaded her boxes and was chatting with Sarah when Davey stepped out of the house. He stood, watching them for a moment, smiling softly to himself. 

It was bittersweet, he thought. He could see Sarah’s blush from here as Spades made some corny joke. He thought they would have been good together if it weren’t for the bullshit their town put them through, if Sarah wasn't so scared of rejection and Spades wasn't so scared of scaring her off. Now they’d never get the chance.

He shook the thought from his head, pushing all the stupid introspective bullshit away for now. He had a nine hour drive to think about all the things he would miss, right now he was going to smile and hug his friend and pretend it wasn’t goodbye. 

Sarah bumped his shoulder when he finally got his box in the truck, making some joke about him being stuck in his head. Spades laughed and nudged his shoulder, adding something about him thinking too much for his own good. He wasn’t paying as much attention as he should have been- too busy soaking up this last moment he’d have with his best friend in his childhood home. 

Maybe they had a point.

Then, their mother called for them from the car. The laughter from just a moment ago seemed to dissipate. Even Sarah’s ever present smile faltered for a moment as her eyes flashed with something akin to panic. David felt like he could read her mind, like he could hear her saying ‘ _no not yet, I haven’t had enough time. I wanna talk for a while longer-_ ’

Spades was the one who snapped both the Jacobs twins out of their moment of panic, ruffling David’s hair and nudging Sarah’s shoulder.

“Go, both of ya- and call me when you guys get settled in. I expect to still see y’all’s faces even if you’re all the way up north,” her stern look was almost threatening, but neither twin seemed upset by it. David nodded, promising to call her while he unpacked and Sarah saying she wouldn’t even wait to get to New York. 

Spades laughed and hugged them both in a tight grip. It lasted a moment longer before their mother was hollering for them again. 

“Tell your ma and pa we said goodbye and we’ll miss them!” Sarah said, wiping at tears no one realized she was shedding. 

Spades nodded, hugging her one last time before both twins rushed off to the car, climbing in the backseat and scrubbing at tears. Les, their nine year old brother, had gone back to sleep pressed up against the window. 

Their dad gave them a sympathetic smile from the rearview mirror. “You’ll see her again. We’ll still visit family on holidays.”

David sniffed and wiped his eyes, “yeah, I know…”

“Don’t mean we won’t miss her,” Sarah finished for him, glancing back to see Spades staring after them with her arms crossed across her chest. 

Their mother sighed, “we know, hon. We know…”

They hadn’t made it ten minutes down the road before David’s phone buzzed. He looked to see Spades contact, a picture of her stuffing noodles into her face with the name “Spades o3o” popping up over a new message.

He laughed through tears, showing it to Sarah.

‘u _better call or i will hunt u down >;)’ _

ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

David would love to say he watched the countryside pass and turn into city as they drove up the coast but he fell asleep almost immediately after responding to Spades’ message. Sarah was just as tired as he was, leaning on his shoulder and leaving a small pool of drool on his sleeve. The only Jacobs kid awake was Les, who woke up about two hours in and started doing that thing kids do where he pointed out literally everything going down the road.

“Oh look mama! Cows!”

“There’s a Mcdonalds! Can we get MCdonalds?”

“Wooooah that house is huge!”

Their parents, bless their souls, smiled and responded to him every time, pointing out their own cool things on the side of the road.

Sarah woke up just long enough to munch on a few fries when they did, in fact, get Mcdonalds, but David slept the whole way. I mean, could you really blame him? He and Spades had stayed up well into the am and he hadn’t exactly gotten much sleep. 

He did finally wake up when they pulled up in front of their apartment building, Sarah shaking his shoulder until his eyes blinked open. Their father let them all out with their mother so that they could go on up while he found somewhere to park. Their mother led the three Jacobs children up the stairs with their bags- just a pack each with a change of clothes, a pillow for the car ride up, and the twins had their chargers. Their moving van wasn't expected to be there until tomorrow, somehow getting delayed behind them. David was a little miffed about it. His laptop and books were all packed away and he had been wanting to get started unpacking as soon as possible.

When David stepped into their new home, his first thought was just how empty it was. The second thing he noticed was, despite the emptiness, it was incredibly cramped. The kitchen connected to the living room and there was only one bathroom for all five jacobs to share. He frowned, already worried about how he was going to fit all his books in his incredibly small room.  
  
His mother seemed to be thinking a similar thought, because she made a pained face. She didn’t say anything, but Les didn’t have the same filter, as nine year olds often don’t.

“This place is tiny! How are we all gonna fit?” Sarah snorted and David elbowed her in the side. Their mother just sighed and put on a strained smile. 

“Oh, don’t complain. We’ll just have to make the most of it. At least you have your own room,” she ruffled his curls and he grinned. 

“Oh! Dibs on the biggest!” he bounced on his heels before running off down the hall, Mrs. Jacobs staring after him with an expression halfway between amusement and exhaustion. David glanced at her, at the dark circles under her eyes and he frowned. She looked tired. He set an arm on her shoulder and tried a smile.

“It’s lovely, mama,” he assured her, “I think I saw a coffee shop down the block, looked really nice.”

She huffed out a laugh, ruffling his hair. “Thank you, David hon,” she gave him a smile that was only half strained at this point, “now shoo. Go pick out a room, we need to figure out what we’re gonna do for supper tonight when you father gets in.”

David nodded and followed his brother down the hall, Sarah right on his heels.

He stepped into the room closest to the kitchen, looking around the tight space. There was just a moment of him staring from the doorway, lamenting his loss of built in bookshelves. His gaze gravitated towards the window and to the fire escape attached to it. The image of Spades clanking up the ladder to pull him out on the roof made its way into the forefront of his mind. She’d bring oreos and a book she had yet to read and drag him to the rooftop so that they could eat cookies and listen to each other read. He always liked her voice, it was deeper and a little rough but it made him feel nostalgic for something he couldn’t remember. 

He cracked a smile before setting his bag in the corner. Even though Spades was all the way in North Carolina, he felt obligated to give her easy access to his room. 

You know, just in case. 

**Author's Note:**

> Iiiiiiiit's rewrite tiiiiiiiime!!!! Southern davey owns my heart and Spades is the lesbian poker friend we all need in life.


End file.
